What the Garbageman Knows
October 7, 2014 1:47 PM Subscribe
On a different floor, we picked our way across a landing covered with rotting food; a pile of trash bags had been ripped apart by stray cats. “This one’s a foreigner,” Sayyid explained. “I’m not supposed to touch her garbage. The landlord isn’t happy with her; there’s some kind of fight. He told me not to remove her trash.” (SLNewYorker)
Sayyid said that this isn’t unusual: people can tip him to remove trash, but they can also tip him to allow somebody else’s garbage to accumulate. We descended to the next floor, where he remarked that the resident was a Muslim with a drinking problem. “There are always bottles in her trash,” he said in a low voice. By way of illustration, he ripped open the bag on her doorstep and showed me the empties: Auld Stag whiskey and Casper wine. He did the same thing with a bag at a building across the street. “This is Mr. Hassan,” he said. “He’s sick.” Sayyid tore open the plastic, rooted around inside, and pulled out a pair of used syringes. “I think he has diabetes,” he said. “Every day, there are two syringes in the garbage. He takes one in the morning and one at night.”
Sayyid said that this isn’t unusual: people can tip him to remove trash, but they can also tip him to allow somebody else’s garbage to accumulate. We descended to the next floor, where he remarked that the resident was a Muslim with a drinking problem. “There are always bottles in her trash,” he said in a low voice. By way of illustration, he ripped open the bag on her doorstep and showed me the empties: Auld Stag whiskey and Casper wine. He did the same thing with a bag at a building across the street. “This is Mr. Hassan,” he said. “He’s sick.” Sayyid tore open the plastic, rooted around inside, and pulled out a pair of used syringes. “I think he has diabetes,” he said. “Every day, there are two syringes in the garbage. He takes one in the morning and one at night.”
"He’s the only guest I’ve ever had who carries away his empties, because he knows he’ll end up collecting them anyway."
Makes sense, but I still would not have thought of that.
posted by Phredward at 2:28 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Makes sense, but I still would not have thought of that.
posted by Phredward at 2:28 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
tipping someone to allow my garbage to accumulate would be an extremely bad idea.
i practice garbage anonymity; all identifying information is removed beforehand.
this post reminded me of a movie treatment i wrote once, for "the kosher indian"...
isaac "ike" redtail, the hero/detective/garbageman, was the product of a torrid fling between a hadassah matron touring a dude ranch and a superhot apache stableboy who was good with horses, and as it turned out, cars too. ike uses his trucklift to hoist a garbage bin into position over his truck, and a body drops out. what happens after that is principally informed by the great tony hillerman's leaphorn/chee series, plus judaism and tons of garbage. movie moguls memail me.
posted by bruce at 2:32 PM on October 7, 2014 [11 favorites]
i practice garbage anonymity; all identifying information is removed beforehand.
this post reminded me of a movie treatment i wrote once, for "the kosher indian"...
isaac "ike" redtail, the hero/detective/garbageman, was the product of a torrid fling between a hadassah matron touring a dude ranch and a superhot apache stableboy who was good with horses, and as it turned out, cars too. ike uses his trucklift to hoist a garbage bin into position over his truck, and a body drops out. what happens after that is principally informed by the great tony hillerman's leaphorn/chee series, plus judaism and tons of garbage. movie moguls memail me.
posted by bruce at 2:32 PM on October 7, 2014 [11 favorites]
The garbage part is fascinating, but what strikes me is how intrinsically smart Sayyid is in terms of memory, relationships (not with his wife) and money yet he never took the time to learn to read. I am surprised the author did not help him learn to read.
posted by 724A at 2:46 PM on October 7, 2014
posted by 724A at 2:46 PM on October 7, 2014
Fascinating and depressing.
"And I found myself wondering about the social dynamics in some Egyptian homes—the combination of men who take sex drugs and women who are circumcised and housebound."
No fucking shit.
posted by Splunge at 2:50 PM on October 7, 2014 [9 favorites]
"And I found myself wondering about the social dynamics in some Egyptian homes—the combination of men who take sex drugs and women who are circumcised and housebound."
No fucking shit.
posted by Splunge at 2:50 PM on October 7, 2014 [9 favorites]
Wow. A remarkable portrait of an almost alien civilization. The whole dispute with the wife and cultural baggage behind it are mind blowing.
posted by localroger at 2:53 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by localroger at 2:53 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
The whole dispute with the wife and cultural baggage behind it are mind blowing
The lawyer's comments about how women are like eggs that must be kept in the refrigerator were, um, chilling. Also kind of enraging.
posted by suelac at 3:58 PM on October 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
The lawyer's comments about how women are like eggs that must be kept in the refrigerator were, um, chilling. Also kind of enraging.
posted by suelac at 3:58 PM on October 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
Yeah, that's another word for it.
posted by localroger at 4:07 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by localroger at 4:07 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's amazing how so much of the world feels increasingly the same, yet something like this is so incredibly culturally foreign.
posted by zachlipton at 4:08 PM on October 7, 2014
posted by zachlipton at 4:08 PM on October 7, 2014
Although actually I was a bit more put out by the reasons FGM is "necessary."
posted by localroger at 4:09 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by localroger at 4:09 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
" I am surprised the author did not help him learn to read."
My understanding is that there is a massive gap between everyday language and standard written Arabic, to the extent that they can be considered two different (albeit related) languages. I imagine teaching someone to read is a much more complex undertaking than in English. Imagine if teaching an illiterate English speaker to read also meant teaching them to understand Chaucer's English at the same time.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:18 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
My understanding is that there is a massive gap between everyday language and standard written Arabic, to the extent that they can be considered two different (albeit related) languages. I imagine teaching someone to read is a much more complex undertaking than in English. Imagine if teaching an illiterate English speaker to read also meant teaching them to understand Chaucer's English at the same time.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:18 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
I take my own trash to the landfill and personally toss it in the compactor. Good luck stealing my identity from the garbage. Fascinating story though.
posted by COD at 4:23 PM on October 7, 2014
posted by COD at 4:23 PM on October 7, 2014
Another complicating factor is that Sayyid has a grueling full time job, so there wouldn't be much time for studying. And he's never seen the inside of schoolroom, so the experience of formal learning would be extremely strange and hard to get used to.
I'm still blown away by the fact mentioned earlier in the article that Cairo has over seven million people and little to no public services.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:34 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm still blown away by the fact mentioned earlier in the article that Cairo has over seven million people and little to no public services.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:34 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Very interesting, thanks for posting.
posted by etherist at 4:36 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by etherist at 4:36 PM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Some years ago, when my wife and I visited the country and questioned some small situation that Westerners would take for granted, an Egyptian who was "fixing" the thing asked conversationally, "First time in Egypt?" He may have just been making conversation but the phrase has come to be our shorthand for the opaqueness of North African / Middle Eastern cultures and the difficulty of deciphering anything from a Western perspective.
So many things here, including, most obviously, FGM, are obviously wrong but as a Westerner, I have to ask myself, dumbfounded, about so many things, "First time in Egypt?"
posted by Morrigan at 4:51 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
So many things here, including, most obviously, FGM, are obviously wrong but as a Westerner, I have to ask myself, dumbfounded, about so many things, "First time in Egypt?"
posted by Morrigan at 4:51 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
When I lived in Peru one summer the trash collectors came around weekly standing on a big open truck and there was no curb pickup. One had to hand them one's bags of trash, which they would then immediately dump out and sort through, looking for anything of value. They wore facemasks and said nothing. It was a little eerie.
posted by telstar at 7:25 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by telstar at 7:25 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
COD: "I take my own trash to the landfill and personally toss it in the compactor. Good luck stealing my identity from the garbage. Fascinating story though."
I worked at the Empire State Building in NYC for several years. A large part of that time was on the loading dock at night separating paper and cardboard from "regular garbage". We also had a compacter. Often the compacter would be too full. So when the truck that came to pull the compacter would leave a crapload of stuff on the floor of the dock. That was when me and my two cohorts would shovel pounds of un-compacted stuff into grey wheeltrucks to be returned to the compacter when the guy returned with the back end of the device.
Compacters. They are heavy duty devices. But they don't destroy stuff. They only try to make the volume smaller. And often fail. If I wanted to find your stuff, though, I would have already pulled all of your paperwork before it hit the compacter. But assuming that you do actually put your important stuff in the compacter... trust me. I could still find all of it. By hand. If I needed to or wanted to.
And as well, let's do a little thought experiment here:
Let's say that a guy came up to me and asked me, "Can you find a particular paper from a particular floor. Assuming that you had the need to do so?" And he handed me $100. I would say no. But assume that I said yes.
Sure we could. We knew exactly which bags were from which floor. Why? Because the guys on the elevators went to each floor on a specific schedule. Why? Because the cleaning people dropped their bags at the freight elevator at a specific time.
At any point we knew where the bags came from. And we were in a hurry to go home. So we knew when the top floor was down we were done.
BTW. There was a LOT of stuff thrown away that we brought home because it was in perfect shape. I still have several leather coats and furniture that I took home from the job. It was actually a small business there and probably still is.
This is not just a "third world" thing. This is a world thing.
posted by Splunge at 8:07 PM on October 7, 2014 [8 favorites]
I worked at the Empire State Building in NYC for several years. A large part of that time was on the loading dock at night separating paper and cardboard from "regular garbage". We also had a compacter. Often the compacter would be too full. So when the truck that came to pull the compacter would leave a crapload of stuff on the floor of the dock. That was when me and my two cohorts would shovel pounds of un-compacted stuff into grey wheeltrucks to be returned to the compacter when the guy returned with the back end of the device.
Compacters. They are heavy duty devices. But they don't destroy stuff. They only try to make the volume smaller. And often fail. If I wanted to find your stuff, though, I would have already pulled all of your paperwork before it hit the compacter. But assuming that you do actually put your important stuff in the compacter... trust me. I could still find all of it. By hand. If I needed to or wanted to.
And as well, let's do a little thought experiment here:
Let's say that a guy came up to me and asked me, "Can you find a particular paper from a particular floor. Assuming that you had the need to do so?" And he handed me $100. I would say no. But assume that I said yes.
Sure we could. We knew exactly which bags were from which floor. Why? Because the guys on the elevators went to each floor on a specific schedule. Why? Because the cleaning people dropped their bags at the freight elevator at a specific time.
At any point we knew where the bags came from. And we were in a hurry to go home. So we knew when the top floor was down we were done.
BTW. There was a LOT of stuff thrown away that we brought home because it was in perfect shape. I still have several leather coats and furniture that I took home from the job. It was actually a small business there and probably still is.
This is not just a "third world" thing. This is a world thing.
posted by Splunge at 8:07 PM on October 7, 2014 [8 favorites]
The Summer was... interesting. At night the loading dock was full of huge NYC rats. So they hired an exterminator. He put out a bunch of this strange woodlike blocks. He said that the rats would eat it and it expanded in their stomachs and killed them. They never touched them. So he came back with huge rat traps. He told us not to fuck with them because the would break a finger. He baited them with bananas.
A week later we had the smell of rotten bananas and no rats trapped. So we started a challenge. Each of us removed the banana crap from two traps. Then we waited for the garbage to come down. We wrote our names under our traps. Then we took food from the garbage bags to bait the traps. I thought that pizza would work best. Phil thought that sushi would work. And Kevin used both. As we worked we listened for the snap that meant that a rat was caught.
Pretty sick right? Call PETA, right?
Fuck that. If you have ever grabbed a bag of stinking garbage from a restaurant and had a nasty rat jump out of it onto your arm or chest, And that fucker is hanging there like it wants to go for your throat, then you can judge me. Otherwise shut up.
posted by Splunge at 8:24 PM on October 7, 2014 [14 favorites]
A week later we had the smell of rotten bananas and no rats trapped. So we started a challenge. Each of us removed the banana crap from two traps. Then we waited for the garbage to come down. We wrote our names under our traps. Then we took food from the garbage bags to bait the traps. I thought that pizza would work best. Phil thought that sushi would work. And Kevin used both. As we worked we listened for the snap that meant that a rat was caught.
Pretty sick right? Call PETA, right?
Fuck that. If you have ever grabbed a bag of stinking garbage from a restaurant and had a nasty rat jump out of it onto your arm or chest, And that fucker is hanging there like it wants to go for your throat, then you can judge me. Otherwise shut up.
posted by Splunge at 8:24 PM on October 7, 2014 [14 favorites]
There's a great photo of the garbage-recycling area at the bottom of this set of images: Stunning Architectural Photos That Reveal How We Live
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:36 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:36 PM on October 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
Culling the pigs by all account made Cairo far dirtier than their existence in pens far away from any contact with the general public.
I lived all told over a year in Sarajevo. Garbage their went into big metal bins. City workers removed it, however homeless people and Roma went through the garbage for anything re-useable or that could be sold, such as scrap metal, soft - drink or beer cans. Many people put such items clean in a separate bag hanging off the handles of the bin.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 2:34 AM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
I lived all told over a year in Sarajevo. Garbage their went into big metal bins. City workers removed it, however homeless people and Roma went through the garbage for anything re-useable or that could be sold, such as scrap metal, soft - drink or beer cans. Many people put such items clean in a separate bag hanging off the handles of the bin.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 2:34 AM on October 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
I live in Cairo and I hesitated to read this, worried that it might be all too much like the usual "wise taxi driver" fare. I did take the plunge however, and while I like Hessler's writing and the prose of the piece, it's no small bit orientalist and exoticist. Maybe this is in part related to the language barrier, but perhaps that's no excuse either.
Regardless of that, however, there's a deeper problem that many here have brought up with consent and writing about vulnerable individuals and populations. The illiterate garbageman Sayyed in question is now effectively being threatened by residents of the Zamalek neighborhood he works in for "playing the spy on them." Who knows how much of his relationship and family issues could get back to his own neighborhood, moreover; most importantly, does he know how much was written and revealed about him?
posted by sherief at 1:46 PM on October 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
Regardless of that, however, there's a deeper problem that many here have brought up with consent and writing about vulnerable individuals and populations. The illiterate garbageman Sayyed in question is now effectively being threatened by residents of the Zamalek neighborhood he works in for "playing the spy on them." Who knows how much of his relationship and family issues could get back to his own neighborhood, moreover; most importantly, does he know how much was written and revealed about him?
posted by sherief at 1:46 PM on October 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
I very much agree, sherief, and I wish Peter Hessler had included some more info somewhere on how much Sayyed knows about this piece and if he explicitly agreed. The piece would need to not only be read to him, but translated as well. And it should be noted Zamalek is quite small and it would be easy to figure out who Peter Hessler is and from there who Sayyed is.
The illiterate garbageman Sayyed in question is now effectively being threatened by residents of the Zamalek neighborhood he works in for "playing the spy on them."
Sherief, are you saying this has already happened? How do you know?
posted by Corduroy at 4:06 PM on October 8, 2014
The illiterate garbageman Sayyed in question is now effectively being threatened by residents of the Zamalek neighborhood he works in for "playing the spy on them."
Sherief, are you saying this has already happened? How do you know?
posted by Corduroy at 4:06 PM on October 8, 2014
Corduroy: I don't know that anything's happened to him, or action taken against him, but the NIMBYish Zamalek neighborhood organization's facebook page had this post on it yesterday.
posted by sherief at 4:08 AM on October 9, 2014
posted by sherief at 4:08 AM on October 9, 2014
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I'm glad we just toss ours into the big dumpster behind the apartment complex next door. Sort that out, trashman!
posted by General Tonic at 2:02 PM on October 7, 2014 [3 favorites]